I own a small (but instantly scalable) marketing company in Hollywood, Florida. We used to be on Madison Avenue in New York until we realized that it no longer matters where we are. And, of course, we can always get to New York, or anywhere, in a few hours. We're experts in direct marketing and we work with huge to very small clients. We love them all. We specialize in thorny issues and the medium doesn’t really matter. Direct Marketing’s essentials migrate very nicely, even (especially) into social media. I've written a lot of (published) books and hundreds of articles about marketing. Some of the books have been translated into as many as 8 languages. We call what we do "the magic formula", which is a fancy way of saying “Understand what you’re trying to achieve. Work hard. Test everything. Drop losers, roll out winners. Repeat.” We help our clients get new customers, keep the ones they have and get back the ones they’ve lost. We love developing new brands and now we're using our direct marketing background to build powerful websites and social media campaigns that engage audiences, generate buzz and, more important, develop profitable response.

Making Your Brand Come Alive Through Storytelling

Storytelling is second nature to direct marketers, and I was so glad to see that confirmed recently at the terrific BtoB Digital Edge Conference in New York City.

I almost didn’t go. A direct mail piece for the conference had languished in my purse for weeks until I decided at the last minute to fly up from south Florida. I said hi to Bob Felsenthal (@bobfels), BtoB’s publisher, and then settled in to pick up new ideas.

And there were ideas galore, but that old-school idea of storytelling made me sit up and smile.

When I taught the DM Course at NYU, I often talked about an apple farm in Washington State that sold its fruit via direct mail. One of its owners was a Madison Avenue advertising exec.

One day his partner in Washington called with bad news. “Wow, we’re in trouble”, he said. “We were going to start picking and shipping today but last night a hail storm knocked most of the apples off the trees and a lot of them have pock marks. Looks like we’ll lose this whole season.”

“Give me a few minutes,” said the ad guy. “I’ll call you right back.” He sat down and wrote a short, powerful story which he faxed to Washington and then he called his partner. “Get the story printed on small cards and insert one into each shipment.”

The card read: “You will notice that your apples have pock marks on them …” and went on to explain that the marks were caused by hail and were proof that the apples had been grown in the cool, clean air of Washington’s high country, closing with “We hope you enjoy them!” None of the shipments were returned and, the next year, many customers returned their order forms with hand-written notes: “Hail-damaged, if possible.”

My favorite example of story spinning in direct mail is Martin Conroy’s phenomenally successful “Two young men” letter for The Wall Street Journal. It started “On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both – as young college graduates are – were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.” One of them was highly successful, one less so. Guess which one read the WSJ?

Does story spinning work in our digital age? It sure does as I saw when I sat in on the Bringing your Brand to Lifesession presented byErich Parker, Director of Strategic Corporate Communications at Dupont.

He showed us an amazing video of a family in Vietnam that couldn’t grow rice; their farm’s soil was too salty because they’d been raising shrimp on it. Dupont engineers created a chemical that desalinated the soil and increased the rice crop by 30% over their pre-shrimp yield. Now the family is doing well and thinking about how their children will get a fine education. The video is here: Dupont Hybrid Rice

The story is so clear: Dupont helps improve lives.

So many TV commercials these days are actually tightly drawn short stories, especially for high end cars like Audi, Mercedes Benz and BMW. They’re online, too.

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Lois, As you know I pioneered some predictive modeling concepts and more recently beat 8 world-class modelers in 11 tests. How? Here’s the story…

From very early on, I haven’t trusted computers. If you believe it is possible to predict human behavior – lets meet outside of your favorite Walmart with your shopping list. We’ll compare notes when you come out. What are the chances that you get what you went in for – no more – no less? Most admit its about 1 in 100.

So if you – knowing all you know about you cannot predict 5 minutes ahead about you… what are the chances that someone like me, knowing almost nothing about you can figure out what you’ll want next?

People who hear that story begin to realize that prediction is far harder than simple ‘Big Data’. Then we can start to teach them what IS possible. :)

There is a great TV commercial running now showing an American GI far away, working with his wife back at home via technology. They are trying to find a house using an on-line realty service. They compare a number of homes, commenting on the school systems, nearby parks and other features of each home. In the end, the mother and young daughter are seen on their way up the front walk of their new home. They open the door and inside is the soldier, home from the war. The company’s message at the end is along the lines of: they weren’t looking for a home to buy, they were looking for the place to start their life. Excellent story and all in 60 seconds or less. Stories can tell so much more in a short period of time than long, drawn out text and endless bullet points. Great article, as usual, Lois.

Hi Paul, Maybe they don’t “get it” with storytelling…or they are afraid to test it. Some people today are so “digitally oriented”, they do everything in short soundbites…and story telling is longer. I’m not sure. I am sure you are on the right track…so keep on telling them benefits. Thank you so much for always taking the time to comment for me. -Lois

Effective brand stories are certainly the most underappreciated aspect in marketing. For all the cynics, it would just take a moment of considering the brands who’ve had success with this to change their minds. Coca Cola is such an amazing example in this regard. I think marketers definitely need to spend enough time in putting the same to effect. Here’s another post on brand stories that I felt was worth a look http://bit.ly/1fOaBI9